Snap
by Five Minutes Til Bedtime
Summary: Life for an empath is not always easy or kind. Will Graham's mind snaps in a pool of blood. Elements of Marvel comics invoked.


Title: **Snap**

Fandom: Hannibal (with some Marvel comics mixed in)

Summary: Life for an empath is not always easy or kind. Will Graham's mind snaps in a pool of blood. Elements of Marvel comics invoked.

Word Count: 4,999

* * *

Will is eight when something in his mind snaps.

He gets out of bed when the noises stop. He's used to the fighting – of the doors slamming and rattling windows and the angry words that boys his age shouldn't understand. He knows that if it's a bad one, sometime in the night Mom will come into his room and shake him awake (he'll pretend to be asleep, pretend not to hear, not to see), pulling him out of his room and into the car and they'll drive and drive until the harsh light of day breaks and Mom will turn back around and go home. If it's an okay night, then his door will remain closed and the shouting will be replaced with tender whispering and the squeaking of a mattress. Sometimes, in those rare fluctuating weeks, days, hours that things are good, Will stays up listening to the peaceful silence until the sandman drags his eyes shut and his consciousness away.

Tonight is not good. Will listens to the shouting, cowering in his bed with his hand on his ears dreaming of the day when he will be big and strong and powerful. He is waiting for the whispers or the creak of the stairs as Mom comes to get him. He is waiting for the shouting to die down only to jump when there is a scream and a crash and then nothing.

Two minutes later (two minutes to gather the courage to leave his bed) he is standing in the kitchen with his toes soaked in blood – warm and sticky – and a dead man and a broken glass table at his feet. Mom isn't there – told him to wait there, not to move, and _it'll be alright baby, Mommy is gonna make it better_.

He feels something breaking inside – some undefinable thing twisting and ripping and shriveling up inside of him. He knows he should look away. He wants to. The man's face is strange. He is one of the many men, all different and all the same, that have come into their home since Dad left, but Will has never seen the man so peaceful. Never known that the same face that could twist in anger (and at least this one hadn't been interested in him this time, not like - ) could be so still and calm. _It's beautiful_, some secret part of his mind whispers. _He's finally gone – isn't this what we wanted? What we dreamed about?_

Mom comes back into the room holding knife and talking to herself frantically. She's half naked and Will can see all the bruises and handprints that coat her pale skin. She was beautiful once. Will can almost remember.

She smiles at Will and that thing inside creaks – high pitched noise that he realizes is coming out of his own terrified mouth.

"Mom? Mommy!"

Her arms come and wrap around him and he ignores the way that the knife handle presses into his back and something wet spreads across his shirt. She smells like cigarettes and sweat and home he realizes he is crying only when she pulls back and wipes a hand across his cheeks.

"Were going on a trip, baby," she tells him, but he can tell that she isn't talking to him. Her eyes are unfocused, dancing across the room, across his face without landing on anything.

"Mom?" he asks, once moment before he sees the knife move.

He stares as the cold metal slips over his wrist. He tries to jerk away, only for nails to bite into his arms, holding him still.

"It's okay, baby. Everything is going to be okay. Mommy's going to make this better. Mommy's – "

He watches as she the knife slips from her fingers and she visibly wilts before his eyes. As she falls to the floor he finally sees the bloody gouges in her wrists, deep and red and ugly. A flash like lighting shoots through his mind as he watches her flop around on the floor and suddenly he is there with her, feeling his life drain from his wrists as he stares up at the ceiling, eyes seeing but not registering his beautiful baby boy, so happy that they were die together like this, so so happy to escape, to be free, and –

He screams and he is back in his own body. His clutches his head, which is suddenly screaming in pain and rage and agony.

When the police arrive – called by a neighbor on a noise complaint – they find two dead bodies on the floor and young boy curled into a corner clutching his head with a jagged gash across his wrist.

He screams when they enter – _getout!getout!GETOUT! – _before he falls unconscious. They never realize that he wasn't talking to them.

* * *

Will adjusts.

It doesn't take him long to realize what it means when he wakes up in the hospital and can feel yellow worry and piercing anxiety and sadness so dark and cold it makes his insides chill. He is surprised when the doctors don't notice – don't realize exactly what he is as quickly as he did. Then again, he knows (from overheard conversations and clipped remarks on the news) that symptoms don't usually present until later, after puberty.

It's just another reason he can call himself a freak.

It isn't something that can be turned off, but he learns to avoid the worst of it. He collects small animals – little mice or lizards – that can be hidden away in his pockets. Focusing on their small minds, their fleeting emotions that revolve on food and sleep, help him to avoid more complex emotions around him. He learns not to look people in the eyes – not that he ever did before – and to avoid crowds. He knows whether each new foster home is safe before he crosses the threshold and learns to run away from the ones that stink of rage and greed and lust and other ugly things.

He is fourteen, sitting in a diner nursing a bruise from a house that he didn't leave soon enough, trying to look like he has enough money to buy something to eat, when the bell over the door rings and a Will feels _wisdomworrykindness _come toward him in the form of an older man in a wheelchair.

The man introduces himself as Professor Xavier – and he does so _inside of Will's head_.

Will bolts from the diner with eyes wide with terror because his mind is his own and no one else can come in and he doesn't know if he will be able to stand it if he can hear _thoughts _as well as taste emotions.

Three days later, the man will corner him again, this time in the temporary youth group home they've put him in as a new foster home pends. With him this time is a _professionalcompassionateworried _woman of caramel skin and white hair and a _lostangrybored _man that crosses his arms and forms words in that sound of grunts and growls.

This time there is no escape as the so-called Professor enters the room and Will can't help the snarl that escapes him as the man moves closer.

"Stay out of my head!"

The man holds up a placating hand. He doesn't mean to be condescending (Will can _taste _his sincerity) but it's a move so familiar to Will that he bristles.

"I promise, William, last time was a mistake on my part. I should have known better than to intrude on a mind as sensitive as yours, only I have found it is easier with meeting such as these if I show rather than tell first who I am."

There's so much in those words (an adult apologizing to _him_? how does he know his name?) that Will doesn't know where to start. " 'm not sensitive," he mutters, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the table sitting between them.

A whiff of _amusement. _"Excuse me if I believe that is not quite true. You're an empath-type; your mind is quite sensitive to the emotions around it. Not that that's a bad thing. Indeed, that's why I'm here today. I operate a school for gifted children such as yourself – a place where you can learn to handle your powers, perhaps even put them to good use."

One quick look at the man's face and a blast of _honestysmellingofbooksandbibles sinceresomanymistakesinthepast curiousitythisonehasfire_.

"You some kind of doctor?"

More _amusement_; this time from the man in the corner. "I am a teacher, as are my companions Logan and Ororo. I'd like to extend to you an invitation to our school in New York. It is of course, a full scholarship and. . . "

Will doesn't accept their offer that day, or even a few months later when he nearly collapses after a girl kisses him and sends him to his knees with the force of her _nervousnessexcitementdesire_.

It isn't until nearly a year later when he is lying awake in another new house, already plotting where he is going to run to next, and he realizes that he would rather take a beaten than work up the energy to run again. He slips from his bed that night and uses the last of his energy to locate a payphone in the middle of a storming Virginian night, drawing out the tattered business card and punching in the number with numb fingers and a heavy heart.

* * *

The three years that Will spends at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters are some of the best and most frustrating of his life. He has a warm bed and plenty of food for the first time since before his mom died, maybe longer. He feels safe, though it takes nearly six months for him to stop jumping at shadows and running away whenever Logan (_Wolverine _now) growled a little too harshly at him.

He doesn't make friends, but that's okay. During one of his many sleepless nights when he's slipped out the window and roams around the deserted streets of town he picks up a stray dog with a limp and far too many scars. He smuggles the dog (Lincoln, he names him for that way his _warinesshopehunger_ smells like copper) into his room that night, bathes him, and spends every evening from that point on sleeping with his hands curling into his thick brown coat. None of the teachers say a word when the dog appears on his heels from that point on. Once Will even caught Logan feeding the dog scraps and smiling.

Having Lincoln makes everything else bearable. The dog, little more than a puppy, is full of _hopecontentmentlove _and it is a barrier that Will uses to block out the uglier emotions around him. The other kids are _curious _about him but most look at his dirty clothes (he refuses new things for two months) and knuckles bruise from fighting and don't come closer. He sticks by himself, making his presence scarce, and soon he is treated as more of a piece of furniture than another person – this suits him just fine.

Life is _frustrating _because of the times that Will can't hide. The Professor was serious when he said that he wanted to train him, even when Will quickly realized that will all their tests and experiments his minds is still full and painful and terrifying.

They teach him focusing techniques and have him practice calming down, focusing on his own emotions. This Will accepts, even is grateful for. It is when they try to focus his powers that he begins to balk. He doesn't want to make them work better, he wants them to turn off!

Still, at some point he learns how to focus on one particular person at a time, turning down the others until they are mere white noise in the background. He learns to accept those emotions into himself, to become that other person as he did so many years ago when his mom tried to take his life and her own. It is a terrifying experience and he wants so badly to never do it again, but the teachers push, telling him that he has to master his power or they will master him. Will wants to tell them how scared he is off getting lost. He wants to explain to them that sometimes he can feel his sanity slipping. That he is beginning to see things that aren't there in the corner of his eye.

He doesn't and he uses his new found focus to make sure the Professor can read none of his worries in his thoughts.

Three years and then it's over. At midnight on his eighteenth birthday he packs up his things and calls for Lincoln. He ignores how his chest tightens when he opens the front door and sees all of his teachers waiting for him, giving him birthday cake and small presents. Professor Xavier hands him a large envelope and an invitation to return anytime.

Later that night, after he has snuck Lincoln into his dingy hotel room, he opens the letter and finds money, several travel vouchers, a pre-paid phone with several numbers pre-installed, and (most importantly) an acceptance letter and a full ride scholarship from a college in New York and he never applied for.

He falls asleep with a smile and a face sticky with tears.

* * *

He begins university with twitching fingers and shaking hands. He is put into a single room to which he is only too grateful, even if the thin walls do little block out the _exitementtredpiditionjubiliance _of the other new students. He's allowed to keep Lincoln on the condition that the dog wears a special collar which announces him as a companion dog – apparently being emotionally unstable is enough to warrant a few extra strings pulled.

He covers the white walls in faces – their blankness reminding him too much of a hospital. He draws Professor Xavier and Wolverine and Ms. Ororo and his Mom and little Sarah from that one home and Johnny and Michal and all the others and they take the place of the photographs that he doesn't have. He pains them in colors that don't make sense. Vivid redorange of _passion_ clashing with the coolblue of _serenity_ on Storm's face. Logan in purple _confusion_ and green heat. Mom in a rainbow of memories – the good, the bad, the ugly. He laughs when he draws her and Lincoln licks the scar on his wrist as if his love could heal it.

He takes classes like a man drowning – desperate to fill his mind with thoughts of his own choosing, another trick he learned from Xavier's. He jumps from department to department, absorbing Freud and Shakespeare just the same as physics and calculus and equations so long they paint the universe. That isn't to say it all comes easy, but he muddles his way through until concepts and philosophies sharpen into solid weights, pulling his mind into the here and now.

He doesn't talk much, but suddenly that doesn't stop people from approaching him. College is a new playground and the people around him are not young teenagers concerned over what talking to the loner will do to their reputation but maturing young adults who believe they are invincible. Girls come up to pet Lincoln, boys grin at him in discussion when a debate goes their teams way, and teachers inviting him to their office hours curious about the young man who's eyes are so bright they look permanently close to crying.

He doesn't make friends but a group of people he grows familiar with gather around him. He won't say it's a bad thing, even when it sometimes gets too much, when things get too much and he retreats with a whimper and an apology by into his room, laying in the dark while his head pounds and Lincoln whines. He adds more faces to his walls and counts it a good thing.

Will stays in college for a long time, nearly seven-years, picking up degrees at a rapid pace, enjoying his exploration and the way in mind aches and creeks under a stress so mundane as too much work. At the pressing of professors he agrees to become a student-teacher, somehow finding it easier to speak to people when he never has to focus on one individual too long. He writes and publishes a few successful articles that bring him a little fame in the academic world and help to put a little money in his pocket.

He is three months away from finishing his first doctorate (in sociology of all things, but societies are fascinating when they lack painful individuals) when he is kicked out for being a mutant. A _greenangryjealous _classmate who glimpsed a peak into Will's room and recognized a few of the faces on the wall reports him to the school board and accuses him a cheating. Professors and classmates urge him to fight it, but emotions are getting too high and the media begins to stir and in the end Will packs up his pictures, gives a half-smile to those who wished to support him, accepts the private apology from the University Dean, and leaves.

* * *

He is contemplating buying a house in the wood of New York when the government finds him. Later he will claim that it was the FBI interested in recruiting a person of his select abilities, when in fact he knows that S.H.I.E.L.D would just as soon as shoot him as offer him a job.

Agent Coulson is sitting in his new apartment three days after his expulsion. His emotions are barely a whisper unless Will pushes and Will offers the man coffee as a thank you for the attempt.

"This is just a check in visit, Mr. Graham. At the moment S.H.I.E.L.D is not actively seeking to recruit you, but we are offering to protect our interests in case that situation changes. We've taken the liberty of deleting your recent…scandal from the media and ensured that those involve keep quiet. I assume you enjoy your privacy just as much as we do."

"What do you want from me?" Will finally asks, because everything has a price and that was a lesson that he learned years ago when his feet were sticky with blood and he exchanged one level hell for the next.

"Just to offer a suggestion and an opportunity. A mutation such as yours could make you a very useful asset if you were willing to pursue it. S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't like to see valuable resources go to waste. My _suggestion _to you Mr. Graham is to put yourself to use before someone else decides exactly what that looks like."

"You want me to make myself useful so you won't have to."

Coulson shrugs the accusation off, grabbing his coat to go. "Take my advice and choose your own master before one is chosen for you. Word is the FBI has also been doing some digging on you – they are a gentler bunch than some."

The agent leaves Will with two cooling cups of coffee and a business card. At the end of the month Will leaves his new apartment and begins FBI training in Quantico, Virginia.

* * *

They reject him almost as soon as he steps through the door – the psychiatrists that is, though several recruiters in the FBI try to push him through almost desperately seconds after he takes his first stab as profiling in class. The psychiatrists are firm though and budge only enough to allow him the status of consultant-in-training. It's a made up title but as Agent Coulson predicted he's a valuable resource that the FBI is fully prepared to bend the rules for.

The truth is that he flies through his courses. He's been running for years now and his body is fit and scarred and used to hitting and being hit. He eats through the courses at a speed that dazzles his trainers and make his mandatory psychiatrists wince. They _worry _for his stress and his mind and his body and every little thing between. If he bothered to talk to them he might have said that this was easy, that's he'd been through much hard things in worse circumstances. As it is they take his continued silence with grating _frustration. _

He doesn't so much as graduate as is deemed roughly trained enough to be shoved out into the field. His taskmaster is a _determinedwrathfulpassionate _man named Jack Crawford. He is not a bad man but that does not make him a very nice one.

* * *

Sixth months and eight cases later, Lincoln dies.

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise but it does. Will feel the _contenthappinesshome _fade day by day as _tiredhappytired _comes to consume his only friend. For three nights Will lays by the old dog with and arm around his warm body and blankets all around and a fire crackling in the hearth before nearby. He doesn't sleep but instead times his breathing religiously to the rise and fall of Lincoln's chest.

On the fourth night the chest falls and doesn't rise again.

Will buries the body in the middle of the woods and feels something threaten to break, break, break deep inside of him.

In the corner of his eye he swears he sees the shadow move and winds up sprinting back to his car, half sobbing, leaving wild animal laughter to lament his fall as he runs from shadows that don't exist.

After two more days of unanswered phone calls and no sleep and vomited food Jack Crawford and Will's psychiatrist of the month knock on his door and find him curled up before an empty fire place, clawing open an old scar on his wrist with ugly bleeding scratch marks crossing over his face.

"Everything is going to be okay. I'm going to make it better. I'm going to make it go away."

He is still muttering and rocking when they lead him bandage him up and drive him to the hospital.

Shortly after, he spends a month in a psychiatric hospital for his first official mental breakdown.

He doesn't tell them that he feels as if he's been breaking his whole life.

* * *

Though he gets visitors in the hospital – Xavior and Ororo and people from college who missed his letters – and extensions of hospitality Will turns them all down when he is discharged. The FBI gives him a teaching post and a wide berth and it's almost easy to block out the whispers after so many years of trying to ignore their emotions. Even Jack seems content not to push, though whether that is from _guilt _or command of his superiors for breaking their new toy Will isn't sure as he avoids any interaction with the man like a plague.

On whim he drives down to Louisiana to visit the house where he almost died the first time. He parks across the street and lurks for hours. The house is just as old and dirty and poor as his memories detail. He can feel the _ragefearpain _inside of it and it is so loud that he almost misses the soft singing of _yellowsunshineandthetasteofhome lavenderlikethesoundoflaughter _and _coolpepermintofquietmorningsinthekitchen_. He can smell his mom beneath all the hurt and for the first time in years he can remember her as she was – beautiful and carefree all those lifetimes ago when Dad was still home and life was easier – and not what she became – a screaming, desperate woman with a knife and a plan.

When he returns to Virginia he buys a house in the country that is far enough away he can finally be alone with his thoughts. He begins teaching, rediscovers that he likes it, and goes through his days inch by inch.

As the months and the years go by he begins picking up more strays until he has a pack of his own that he can curl up and retreat into every night.

He consults on a few cases from afar, being spoon-fed them from agents that still remembered him as a tool more than a nutcase. Jack keeps his distance, though Will can sometimes feel him when he works, a quiet contemplating force in the back of the classroom.

Four methodical years pass and things begin to feel if not good than at least as though he has regained a little balance.

Two days after the anniversary of Lincoln's death he gets a call from Jack.

"How much to you know about the Chesapeake Ripper?"


End file.
